Robotics

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Robots are already in widespread use in manufacturing and warfare. You see them increasingly in hospitals, warehouses, even homes. The mainstreaming of robotics presents a number of interesting puzzles for administrative, tort, and other areas of the law.

CIS has emerged as a national leader in exploring the intersection of law and robotics. Our staff has published on a variety of topics, including autonomous driving, the domestic use of drones, robotics and privacy, and liability for personal robots. We have held several events around artificial intelligence and robotics, including the annual Robot Block Party for National Robotics Week that draws thousands of visitors.

Dr. Asaro is Associate Professor in the School of Media Studies at the New School in New York City. He is the co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, and has written on lethal robotics from the perspective of just war theory and human rights. Dr. Asaro's research also examines agency and autonomy, liability and punishment, and privacy and surveillance as it applies to consumer robots, industrial automation, smart buildings, aerial drones and autonomous vehicles.

Ryan Calo is an assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Law and a former research director at CIS. A nationally recognized expert in law and emerging technology, Ryan's work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, Wired Magazine, and other news outlets. Ryan serves on several advisory committees, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the Future of Privacy Forum.

Patrick Lin is the director of the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group, based at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where he is also an associate philosophy professor. He has published several books and papers in the field of technology ethics, especially with respect to nanotechnology, human enhancement, robotics, cyberwarfare, space exploration, and other areas. He teaches courses in ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of technology, and philosophy of law. Dr.

Thank you for reading my posts this week. If you happen to be Eugene Volokh or Ken Anderson, thank you in particular for making them possible. And if you were one of my thoughtful commenters, thank you for questioning and challenging; I have read your remarks with great interest.

In the first of this two-article series, we saw how augmented reality (AR) is causing friction between individual liberty and public interest. AR appmakers are being required by some parks to obtain a permit before they can “put” virtual objects in those public spaces, given the sudden crowds the apps can cause.

This article looks at the same core dilemma with another technology: automated driving.

With very rare exceptions, automakers are famously coy about crash dilemmas. They don’t want to answer questions about how their self-driving cars would respond to weird, no-win emergencies. This is understandable, since any answer can be criticized—there’s no obvious solution to a true dilemma, so why play that losing game?

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This Article focuses on one cyberphysical domain — automated driving — to methodically analyze the so-called liability problem. It considers how automated driving could affect product liability, how product liability could affect automated driving, and how each could advance or impede the prevention of injury and the compensation of victims.

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"“There were lots of overlaps and informal sharing and all kinds of personalities early on,” says Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at Stanford who specializes in automated driving technology. The Uber–Waymo case can be seen, he says, as “tidying up loose ends dealing with the remnant messiness from the beginning,” said Smith. Still, just because the case is settled doesn’t mean the road that lies ahead for automated driving is any less rocky."

"“[Autonomous police cars] could also reduce opportunities for valuable educational or investigatory interactions between police and the public,” Smith says. “Besides, there are already far more efficient forms of automated enforcement. Many states have been hostile to some of these, such as speed cameras, while publicly oblivious to others, like license-plate readers.”"

"“I'm skeptical that this idea satisfies the patentability requirements of novelty and nonobviousness,” said Bryant Walker Smith, a professor of law and engineering at the University of South Carolina and an affiliate scholar at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School.

Regardless, Smith said, the idea’s likely to be one part of a larger shift.

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In 2013, Elon Musk proposed an "open source transportation concept" of levitating vehicles zooming passengers through vacuum tubes at 760 miles an hour. It would be weatherproof, energy-efficient, relatively inexpensive, have autonomous controls. Its impact on urban and inter-city transport could reshape economies and families.

U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, will convene a hearing on Wednesday, November 16, 2016, at 3:00 p.m. entitled “Exploring Augmented Reality.” The hearing will examine the emergence, benefits, and implications of augmented reality technologies. Unlike virtual reality that creates a wholly simulated reality, augmented reality attempts to superimpose images and visual data on the physical world in an intuitive way.

Attendees will hear leading speakers, participate in interactive breakout sessions, and network with key innovators in this exciting field. Don't miss what's in store for the Automated Vehicles Symposium 2016.

The University of Washington School of Law is delighted to announce a public workshop on the law and policy of artificial intelligence, co-hosted by the White House and UW’s Tech Policy Lab. The event places leading artificial intelligence experts from academia and industry in conversation with government officials interested in developing a wise and effective policy framework for this increasingly important technology. The event is free and open to the public but requires registration. -

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Happy New Year! And there’s already so much going on. We’re keeping it close to home today, to start 2016. As close as the sky above us. The Federal Aviation Administration and NASA see it getting really busy with drones. Maybe a million-plus new drones out there just in recent weeks. Amazon and Google keep pushing for drone delivery. Now NASA’s talking drone highways in the sky. This hour On Point, how we will live with drones.

Self-driving cars are already cruising the streets today. And while these cars will ultimately be safer and cleaner than their manual counterparts, they can’t completely avoid accidents altogether. How should the car be programmed if it encounters an unavoidable accident? Patrick Lin navigates the murky ethics of self-driving cars.

Robotic warfare is no longer the realm of science fiction. From drones to the development of lethal, autonomous robotic weaponry, we take a look at the ethics of the future of killer robots and where this will ultimately lead mankind.